The famous Shen Wansan—this name is probably something everyone has heard in history class, but even if you haven’t, it doesn’t really matter since he’s an ancient figure anyway. This restaurant is named Shen Wansan Gusu Banquet. Whether it has any actual connection to Shen Wansan, I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that at that moment, I was extremely hungry. Compared with another restaurant called Gusu Boat Banquet, the wait here was a bit shorter, so we decided to line up. By the way, my dad checked this place on Dianping beforehand. Whenever we look for restaurants in Suzhou, he’s the one who browses Dianping, and we just follow his lead. He usually checks the ratings and reviews first, then asks if we’re okay with eating there.
The restaurant is in a very noticeable spot near Shantang Street, with a bright and eye-catching exterior. But you can tell it’s mostly tourists who eat here. Local people usually prefer using platforms like Meituan to get discount coupons, which makes the prices much more affordable.
The Euryale seed (gorgon fruit) and osmanthus sweet soup was complimentary (if I remember correctly). It had a light fragrance, not too sweet, very healthy and nourishing. Quite good, but if you drink too much, you’ll get full quickly.
Speaking of Shen Wansan, you can’t miss their braised pork knuckle, which is the signature dish and served in a huge portion. We ordered it fully expecting we might not finish, but we just wanted to try it. The color looks dark, with a sweet-and-salty flavor. The fatty parts weren’t greasy at all. Personally, I thought it could have been stewed a bit longer—the skin was bouncy, and the meat inside hadn’t fully absorbed the flavors. It was best eaten with both skin and meat together. Definitely a classic dish to go with rice, though toward the end we were really stuffed. Still, we almost finished it!
The crispy fish wasn’t what I expected. In Shanghai or Hangzhou, I’d had versions fried to a deeper golden crisp. Here, it retained some moisture in the flesh and wasn’t cooked all the way through, leaving it more tender. But the bones made it much riskier to eat.
The shrimp was truly fresh—though a little salty, it was still very satisfying.
Of course, we needed some vegetables. The vegetable soup unfortunately had one big drawback: the flavor was too heavy, too salty.
And this dish was our mistake—looking at both broths, they were already somewhat similar. The tofu on top had absorbed some of the soup’s flavor, with no noticeable bean smell, but overall the broth was again too salty for drinking.
The crab roe soup dumplings were best eaten piping hot. Once they cooled, there was a bit of a fishy taste. Personally, I found them just average.
Overall, we were stuffed by the end. Since we’re pretty tolerant of different seasonings, the strong flavors didn’t bother us, though some people might find it hard to adjust at first. Normally, we wouldn’t have ordered so many heavy dishes, but that day we had walked a lot and ended up choosing more meat dishes to “replenish protein.” It was more of a “try it if we had the chance” kind of experience—there are just too many restaurant options around!
0 留言